The Copley-Fairlawn City Schools Board of Education honored the district’s National Merit Scholarship Program semifinalists and commended students at the Nov. 20 meeting.

Commended students and semifinalists are among the top 50,000 of the approximately 1.5 million students who take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test each year, said Superintendent Brian Poe.

Among the 34,000 students recognized nationally as commended students are Copley High School students Alan Du, Paige Myers and Eric Wang. Among the 16,000 semifinalists are Mitchell Koellner, Jacob Kulas, Jarad Pennington and Keval Yerigeri.

The board also honored students of the month for October. They include:

The athlete of the month for September was soccer player Du, a senior. He is the son of Ming Du and Jenny Jiang.

In other business, the board:

• approved accepting a $2,750 donation from the Copley Music Boosters to be used as a stipend for Copley High School Band’s Color Guard instructor Kristi Forshey-Graham and approved payment of the stipend;

• accepted a $100 donation from Lewis Landscaping for use by the Copley-Fairlawn Middle School Speech and Debate Club;

• approved adoption of “Trouble Don’t Last,” by Shelley Pearsall, for use in classrooms;

• hired substitute certified and classified personnel;

• extended an unpaid medical leave of absence to Michele Wilhelm for the remainder of the school year;

• granted an unpaid medical leave of absence to Joyce Sarnicki from Aug. 22, 2012, through the end of the school year;

• granted an unpaid parental leave to Melissa Capper, effective on or about Jan. 31 through the end of the school year. Board member Sue Emich abstained from the vote; and

• hired Alicia Fonte as a lifeguard and Felicia Walker as a lunchroom aide.

The next regular school board meeting will take place Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Main Office Conference Room at Copley High School, located at 3797 Ridgewood Road. The board set its 2013 organizational meeting for Jan 10 at 7 p.m.